Dr Tony Bongiorno yesterday said the facility's reputation had been "destroyed".

"The story so far has been not only one-sided but extremely unfair to the staff," Dr Bongiorno said.

A July 18 inspection by the Department of Health and Ageing found Kirralee, in Ballarat East, had failed in 33 of 44 minimum standards of care, resulting in the strongest sanctions ever placed on an aged care facility.

An independent administrator has been appointed to oversee its operation for six months and bed numbers are being reduced from 100.

Kirralee executive director Julie Reed blamed poor record keeping for its failure to meet 11 of the standards.

However, Dr Bongiorno, who has had patients at Kirralee for 23 years, said the sanctions would do nothing for patient care but just increase nurse workloads.

"Nurses spending a lot of time at desks doing paperwork is not adding anything to patient care."

Dr Bongiorno said the matter had impacted heavily on staff.

"It's put enormous pressure on them (the staff). I've spoken to them and they are as low as can be."

Dr Bongiorno said, if Kirralee closed, the impact of taking 100 nursing home beds out of Ballarat's health system would be enormous.

"It'll just increase the problems in a system in Ballarat already under stress."

Dr Bongiorno said he had not been informed by the accreditation agency of any issues at the facility.

"The accreditation agency should show us (the doctors) what is wrong to see if it's impacted on patient care," he said.

"I wouldn't like to think a bureaucrat without a medical background walked in and made such a devastating comment without the entire scenario being included."

Dr Bongiorno said he believed Kirralee staff were "fantastic" at a "thankless job".

He said the medical condition of Kirralee's patients, some of whom have terminal illnesses, needed to be taken into account when talking about issues as weight loss.

The Department of Health and Ageing had no comment yesterday.

The Aged Care Standards and Accreditation Agency has set a deadline of September 17 for Kirralee to improve its standards or face being stripped of taxpayer funding.

Kirralee has applied to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal to have the deadline extended, with an outcome expected tomorrow.